14. Quality of the statistics

Overview

The large variety of case types and procedural outcomes that can
be pursued in civil law mean that recording and reporting civil law
court cases accurately and reliably is a challenge. The Scottish
Government and the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (
SCTS) have
invested time over several years to identify key case data and how
best to capture and record it.

The data supplied by
SCTS for
this bulletin was extracted from the electronic Case Management
System (
CMS). This system
is currently being replaced by a new Integrated Case Management
System (
iCMS),
which has handled sheriff courts data since 31 October 2016. The
Court of Session is expected to move onto this new system in 2017.
Future editions of this bulletin will make use of
iCMS
data, at least in part.

The publication of civil law court statistics was suspended
after
Civil Judicial Statistics Scotland 2002 because of a lack
of precision in the definition of data items, which caused
inconsistencies in the way courts captured and recorded civil data.
The statistics published until then were deemed unreliable and
potentially misleading. Extensive work has since been conducted to
identify and rectify instances of inconsistent recording of data.
Following improvements to data quality, publication of civil law
statistics resumed in 2008-09. Users of civil law statistics have
also been consulted to identify which data is most useful to
them.

To assist with the on-going improvement of civil law statistics,
a dedicated ScotStat group has been created. The objectives of this
group are to:

Identify the key strategic statistical information required
by users

Develop and implement a strategy for prioritising and meeting
these needs

The group has membership across the civil law community and
normally meets once or twice a year. If you are interested in
joining the group, please contact us using the details provided at
the end of this document. Links to the civil justice group are
available within the
ScotStat
web pages.

Comparability of data

The statistics produced since 2008-09 have been assessed by the
Scottish Government as being of sufficient quality to be published
as Official Statistics. However, when using the statistics, the
following points should be considered.

Because of how the data is recorded, if a case is appealed or
reclaimed during the same month that it was disposed of, then the
original disposal will not be counted. However, as there are very
few appeals and reclaiming motions each month, this is not expected
to have a significant impact on the statistics.

The civil justice statistics for 2015-16 can be compared with
statistics for 2008-09 onward. Due to inconsistencies in the data
prior to April 2008 and changes in recording methods and
definitions, the current series of statistics should not be
directly compared with earlier data, which is shown in this
bulletin for illustrative purposes only.

Ordinary cause

The number of ordinary cause cases disposed of is an
underestimate. Analysis of data suspected to be inaccurate and
collected between April 2008 and February 2010 found that about a
fifth of the active ordinary cause cases may have been disposed of
but were not marked as such in the electronic case management
system. However, it could not be determined conclusively whether
all the excess cases were in fact disposed of, as the analysed data
was not representative of all data collected by SCTS. The number of
ordinary cases marked incorrectly is hence likely to be smaller
than a fifth.

A number of cases initiated do not proceed beyond having the
initial writ or summons registered with the court. These cases
cannot be classed as disposed of as they can be resumed under
certain circumstances. The analysis found that up to around a tenth
of the ordinary cause cases studied had no further action after
initiation.

A number of cases are sisted (suspended), either for a defined
period or until the occurrence of a particular event. Again, these
cases are not disposed of as they may be resumed in the future but
SCTS has
investigated whether cases which have been sisted can be identified
within the statistics. The analysis found that around a fifth of
the ordinary cause cases studied were currently sisted.

Summary application

The "other" category on the
SCTS
electronic case management system (
CMS) includes a
wide range of summary applications, but some courts are recording
activities under this case type which in the future will not be
recorded on
CMS. These
activities cannot be easily identified and excluded from the
summary application case count, and as a result the total number of
summary application cases cannot be calculated.

The number of cases disposed of is very likely to be an
underestimate, but the extent of the undercount is not known and it
would be either too resource-intensive or, for some case types,
impossible to estimate.

Court of Session - personal injury cases

Personal injury cases within the Court of Session are raised
under a specific court procedure. However, either party can request
permission from the court to opt out of this procedure and use the
standard ordinary procedure. When this happens, cases are
transferred out and re-registered under the ordinary procedure
where they are eventually disposed of.

Divorce and dissolution data
sources

The divorce and dissolution statistics presented in
Table
9 and
Table
10 are derived from a different data source to the other
statistics in this bulletin. Both data sources are based on
information recorded by
SCTS but
there are differences in the timing and processing of the two
extracts. These differences are small, as demonstrated by the
comparison in
Figure 16 of the total number of divorces
and dissolutions from each source. The statistics in
Table
9 and
Table
10 and the
Divorces
& Dissolutions Supplementary Tables are based on individual
records that are updated on an on-going basis. The detail contained
in this data enables the breakdown of cases granted by grounds,
age, duration, marital status, method of celebration and
gender.

Figure 16: Total number of divorces and
dissolutions from individual-level and aggregate data